Loudness as a variable in persuasion.

Abstract

A persuasion scale that assesses counselor conviction and client agreement was used to rate 900 counselor statements. The 24 highest rated and 15 lowest rated persuasive statements were fed into a graphic level recorder. Differences in the graphs of the high-and low-persuasive statements indicated that loudness is a characteristic of persuasion.

Desirability of control versus locus of control: Relationship to paralinguistics in the Type A interview.

“…Specifically, the present data suggest that Type A voice stylistics may, in part, also evolve in the service of control needs. The following findings are consistent with this interpretation: (a) high vocal intensity has been associated with successful persuasive communication and social influence (Packwood, 1974;Scherer, Rosenthal, & Koivumaki, 1972); (b) rapid speech has been related to higher ratings of speaker competence, and with increased persuasiveness of a communication through enhancement of speaker credibility (Miller, Maruyama, Beaber, & Valme, 1973;Smith, Brown, Strong, & Rencher, 1975); (c) vocal assertiveness of source authority figures has led to enhanced inducement of actual behavior change in accordance with source recommendations in both laboratory and field settings (Bugental & Love, 1975;Duncan & Rosenthal, 1968;Matarazzo, 1965;Milmoe, Rosenthal, Blane, Chafetz, & Wolf, 1967;Natale, 1975); (d) vigorous voice intonation has been associated with successful domination of group conversation and ratings of Type A-like characteristics of dominance, assertiveness, extraversion, and the like (Bugental, 1974;Conroy & Sundstrom, 1977;Natale, Elliot, & Jaffe, 1979;Zuckerman, Amidon, Bishop, & Pomerantz, 1982); (e) similarly, such vocal intonation has been related to internal rather than external causal attributions in experimental situations (Bugental, Henker, & Whalen, 1976); (f) noncontent speech parameters have been established as a stable individual difference variable (Matarazzo, 1965;Welkowitz, Feldstein, Finkelstein, & Angelsworth, 1972), that provide little internal feedback to the source (i.e., low awareness for speaker), but generate high salience for the listener (Bugental, 1974;Holtzman & Rousey, 1966;Matarazzo, 1965); and (g) despite the fact that voice characteristics of one individual can influence such noncontent mannerisms in others, many individuals cannot successfully alter their voice parameters even when instructed to do so (Black, 1949;Matarazzo, 1965;Natale, 1975). In sum, noncontent speech mannerisms have been established as reliable individual difference variables that have been systematically related to a variety of outcomes generally consistent with both the conceptual definition of the TABP a...…”

How (Fast) Can I Help You? Tone of Voice and Telephone Operator Efficiency in Interactions1

“…Oksenberg et al (1 986) examined interviewer vocal qualities and found that successful telephone interviewers had voices that were perceived as significantly higher pitched, more variable (changing), louder, faster, and clearer than the voices of unsuccessful interviewers. Other studies have also found that persuasive speech is louder, faster, and less halting than nonpersuasive speech (Kimble & Seidel, 1991 ;Mehrabian & Williams, 1969;Miller, Maruyama, Beaber, & Valone, 1976;Packwood, 1974). Based on this research, we predicted that faster telephone operators would speak with a more changing (vs. monotone) voice that is also louder, clearer, and faster.…”

Convergence of mean vocal intensity in dyadic communication as a function of social desirability.

“…Webb (1970) aptly pointed out that the synchrony model is especially deficient in accounting for convergence of speech rates, since previous research (Rucsch & Priestwood, 1949) has indicated that high speech rates are perceived as unpleasant, hence not positively rewarding; yet matching of speech rates is found. This line of reasoning is also applicable to vocal intensity convergence, since it has been shown that higher vocal intensity is associated with persuasiveness (Packwood, 1974;Scherer, Rosenthal, & Koivumaki, 1972) and that very high vocal intensity is perceived as an expression of hostility (Constanzo, Markcl, & Constanzo, 1969). In other words, there seems to be curvilinear relationship between persuasiveness and vocal intensity, yet vocal intensity convergence has been demonstrated to occur at several levels of vocal intensity in the present experiment, and imitative modeling of vocal intensity (Baird & Tice, 1969) has been shown to occur at very high and very low levels of vocal intensity.…”